


Built For War

by BiconBane



Series: BAMF Prince Of Hell High Warlock [7]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: BAMF Magnus Bane, Backstory, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Pre-Series, Prince of Hell Magnus Bane, Princes Of Hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-31 20:34:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12140595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BiconBane/pseuds/BiconBane
Summary: A child who is built for war grows into a man who cannot escape it.





	Built For War

 

The air was hot. Magnus swallowed, his throat dry, as he tried to blink the darkness of sleep away from his eyes. He failed.

 

He could plainly feel his eyes were open, and yet blackness persisted to bare down on his vision. Panic attempted to rear its ugly head in his gut but he shoved it down with a slow breath. Carefully, he tilted his head, trying to listen.

 

There had been no need. A roar pierced the silence and shook the world, the fury and power contained in it enough to make Magnus wish to curl into a frightened little ball. That, too, he refused to do.

 

Another deep breath, and he tapped into the magic that always burned within his skin. Not to make it manifest into sparks and smoke yet, but enough to see just a little deeper. It worked, and if Magnus had not given up listening carefully, he would have heard a soft laugh.

 

Magnus opened his eyes and saw hell. Demons shoved at each other as they scuttled past him without a second glance, their scaly dark flint skin shining dully in what little light this particular realm of hell had to offer. They pushed through his body like it was made of smoke and Magnus frowned. It had been a long time since he had been swept up into one of these dreams, but just maybe… 

 

He looked up, past the demons, and to where they were fleeing. It was best described as a tunnel; the pale light of this hell tapering off the further back it went.

 

In the blink of an eye, Magnus willed himself to the end of the so called tunnel, where the darkness shrouded everything in sight completely and power itself shook the ground. The entire space felt full, not unlike the sensation one gets when they stand in a crowded elevator. 

 

Magnus looked to his right; a woman flashed before his eyes, her obsidian scales rippling. To the left, there stood another woman, only for a heartbeat, but long blue horns twisted away from her skull. The blackness flickered, and then a man stood there, his nails, long, hooked, and golden.

 

He was no stranger to power, magical, angelic, demonic, or anything inbetween. That was, in itself, an impossibility. But this kind of power, the kind that was a poison being forced down one’s throat, that pressed into one’s skin hard enough to leave bruises, that trapped and confined one in a space one would fear they would never escape, well. It was a kind of power Magnus had only felt once before, and not nearly in such high concentration.

 

This time, Magnus could not possibly miss the soft laughter, for it breezed right past his ear. If they had been alone, he would have demanded answers, but now he dared not bring any more attention onto himself.

 

Another bellow, the same one that had rocked the world when Magnus had first arrived, split the air, and light suddenly burst forth. Red stained the walls and Magnus could only look to the middle of that light.

 

A creature, shaped like a man, kneeled there, chains wrapped around his hands and arms, twisting them behind his back and shackling him to the ragged walls behind him and the stone floor beneath him. Flames the color of blood licked his body and in response, the chains burned white.

 

He gritted his teeth, an inhuman growl breaking from his maw. He looked up and his face twisted into something monstrous, his eyes a flat black. His words were spoken in the language of the angels and the first demons both. “Cowards,” he snarled. “Betrayers! Weaklings.”

 

The sound of a woman’s laugh, light and tinkling, interrupted him. His face flashed and changed, growing into that of a serpent, before fading back. “You can laugh all you like,” he spat. “But you are  _ here _ .”

 

Silence fell and Magnus curled his hands into fists as the light began to fade. His heart began to beat faster as the cloying power began to stretch upwards into a crescendo.

 

The ground under his feet cracked as his clawed feet dug into it. Feathered wings sprouted from his back and arched upwards. He grunted and then shouted, both in determination and pain and inhuman muscles rippled as he pulled against his restraints. Red fire burst from his body once more and the chains shattered.

 

One of the shards flew through where Magnus’ chest would be and Magnus felt the sharp sting of fear as if it had actually pierced his heart. In front of him, the demon stepped forward, his wings all splayed in victory, his hands held out, and this time, his roar echoed in triumph.

 

The bed’s silk sheets were damp against Magnus’ back as his eyes flew open, a name on his lips in place of a gasp.

 

“ _ Azazel _ .”

 

By the time he had dressed, the hell’s Prince of War had already brought horrors akine to what he experienced in Dudael down onto his world. Fire that none could call heavenly any longer had already begun to eat up the land.

 

And Ragnor was at his front door.

 

“Catarina is already there,” his friend said as he gazed at the burning earth on Magnus’ television. “She’s doing what she can.”

 

Magnus stared into his whiskey and wished his hand would stop trembling. Ragnor’s hand covered his. He would know, Magnus though distantly. Not everything, for Magnus had not told him, but he knew enough to guess, certainly. He knew of Magnus’ past dreams and he knew who now walked the earth and wreaked devastation in his path.

 

“Come with me,” Ragnor said lowly.

 

Magnus downed his whiskey. “I’ll be there,” he said. “I’ll do what I can.”

 

Ragnor scowled. “You’ll do what is  _ foolish _ ,” he snapped. “This, he, it is not your responsibility.” he took a breath and squeezed Magnus’ hand. “You trained so you could get away from all this,” Ragnor said, “no one can doubt your ability to fight or your power, but you sought to put it into saving lives rather than what--”

 

Magnus pulled away.

 

“-- _ Rather than what some _ would believe you are destined for,” Ragnor said. 

 

“I know what I am believed to be destined for,” Magnus said as he turned his whiskey glass in his hand. “But I couldn’t escape this,” the glasses shattered in a flash of blue. “And I can’t escape what else is in my blood either.”

 

“You are not escaping, nor are you fleeing,” Ragnor said stubbornly. “You are your own, no matter what your  _ blood _ would have you believe.”

 

A portal snapped open behind him and Magnus turned it face it.

 

“I will be very cross if you die!” Ragnor shouted behind him. With a smile, Magnus let his cat eyes flash as he turned and bowed with a flourish. The last thing he saw was Ragnor’s overly dramatic eye roll and reluctant smile.

 

Dudael was not what many mundanes thought of when they pictured hell with its empty, yawning space and its nigh unending darkness. The soles of Magnus’ shoes hit the soot covered earth as flames licked by his face and his entire world seemed to glow a dark, ominous orange. Azazel had brought the mundanes’ hell to them.

 

“What do you think?”

 

Magnus turned, slowly. Azazel stood there, inches from the fire, his body again in the shape of a human man, his back mostly turned to Magnus as he watched the flames crackle and pop. 

 

“It is a bit messy,” Azazel said thoughtfully. “I suppose I did go a bit overboard. When you’ve been confined for so long, you really do feel a need to just let loose.”

 

Azazel turned to Magnus, his eyes a flat black. “You were there,” he said. “By what I can only assume is your  _ father’s _ allowance.”

 

“I’d assume that, too,” Magnus said, and Azazel smiled.

 

“So you two  _ are _ … estranged,” he said. “How… exciting. Tell me, has he made you an offer yet?”

 

Magnus traced the  _ M _ on his ring. “Once.”

 

“And you didn’t accept,” Azazel laughed quietly. “What a slap in the face. He really must like you if you’re still alive. Though that does beg the question: why are you here?”

 

“Why don’t you try answering this question,” Magnus said. “Why did I say no to my father?”

 

Azazel shook his head. “A bleeding heart, then,” he said. “I didn’t think Asmodeus was even capable of passing down one of those. You are aware that when one’s heart is bleeding, they tend to be close to death?”

 

“Try me,” Magnus said and raised his hands.

 

Azazel’s smile was lost in the crackle and pop of the fire as it suddenly exploded between them. In the blink of an eye, the flames went from red and orange to the darkest black and the normal, hissing sounds of a fire spiraled upward into a crescendo of screams.

 

Magnus’ heart skipped a beat and he took a step backward. Memories of long ago danced in those flames, and he firmly stamped down on the desire to flee.

 

Azazel, on the other hand, stared directly into the Hellfire with a look of sheer incredulity on his face. “You really like him, then?” he asked, his voice was torn between shock and amusement. He reached a hand directly into the flames, and though the shrieks grew louder, the fire itself parted around his wrist. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

 

As if on cue, the Hellfire exploded, the force of it throwing both Azazel and Magnus backwards and blowing them right off their feet. All the breath was forced from Magnus’ chest when he collided with the ground, but when Azazel’s back slammed into the earth, all he let out was a laugh.

 

Dark grey wings extended from what was left of the swirling black fire, and an ugly, sunken in maw appeared from it.

 

The Edomi was on Azazel in a heartbeat, the rest of its brethren following it from the Hellfire. One’s claws tore into Azazel’s leg and another’s met his neck. Azazel tried to laugh again, but all that came out was a gurle. His black ichor staining the ruined ground was the last thing Magnus saw.

 

This time, Magnus opened his eyes to aching light. An extremely familiar chandelier hung from the ceiling directly above it, and as Magnus blinked the overexposure from his gaze, he felt a distinct fury churn in his gut.

 

“You copied my apartment?” he asked.

 

On the chair across from him, Asmodeus toasted him with a glass of whiskey. “I also saved your life,” he said.

 

Magnus could feel the cold floor through both rug and the heavy boots he was wearing as he swung his legs off the copy of his couch. He outright refused to let the shudder that gripped his spine resound through his entire body. “Why,” he asked, not bothering to keep the anger from his voice.

 

Asmodeus twirled the whiskey in his glass. “Because Azazel would have killed you,” he said. “I couldn’t have that, I would have never heard the end of it. A child of mine killed by my own brother. The disgrace!”

 

Magnus rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to speak again when Asmodeus reached forward and put his glass delicately on the table in front of him. “You know,” he said, curling his brown fingers around his knee again. “Most would be a little more grateful. And you haven’t even heard my offer yet.”

 

“I’ve heard your  _ offers _ before,” Magnus snapped, his hand curling into a ball. “I think I’ve made my answer clear.”

 

“Azazel will rip your dimension apart,” Asmodeus said and Magnus shut his mouth so fast his teeth ground together. “A little excessive, perhaps, but it has been so long since he got to stretch his legs. You can try to stop him, but you will fail.”

 

Asmodeus leaned over the table, a smile any who didn’t know him would call the epitome of kind on his face. As it was, that very same smile made Magnus stomach churn. “Unless, of course, you accept my offer.”

 

A wave of his fingers, and a wash of colorless power blurred over the copy of Magnus’ coffee table. A short, black blade, a ring, and a book which cover gleamed appeared in its place. Magnus’ heart stuttered and a foreign desire to reach out and claim each one as his own took hold. “What are they?” he asked, voice soft, and he didn’t look up in time to catch Asmodeus’ smile.

 

“Tools,” Asmodeus said. “Ones that will grant you victory over Azazel, if you use them.”

 

Magnus’ hands shook with the need to reach out and take Asmodeus’ gifts, but he did not. He couldn’t find it in him to look away from them either, though. “Why would you help me,” he asked. “Azazel is one of yours.”

 

Asmodeus shrugged, a faint smirk on his face once more. “You’re an only child,” he said. “You can’t understand the desire to see your siblings suffer.”

 

The ground shifted under Magnus’ feet and he was back in his real loft. The chill was gone, and all that remained of it were what was laid on the table in front of him.

 

\-- -- --

 

With a shout, Azazel ripped the last Edomi to shreds with his hands. Their ichor had stained his suit, but he simply waved a hand, and the mess was gone.

 

“Back again?” Azazel asked. “You truly do share your father’s intelligence.”

 

“Asmodeus said he would like to see you suffer,” Magnus said. “My father and I don’t see eye to eye on much, but I do feel like that’s something we can agree on.”

 

Azazel smiled and shook his head in what could almost be called affection. “I’m afraid I won’t be able to indulge you in that, dear nephew,” he said.

 

“Oh,” Magnus said as he raised his hands, his newest ring glittering faintly in the fire’s light on his finger. “I don’t know about that.”

 

Hellfire spilled from his hands, decimating the ground in front of him to curl around Azazel’s skin in a dark dance. 

 

Azazel didn’t flinch, but he did look down, and surprise, followed quickly by irritation, flickered across his face before vanishing. “So you do have some fight in you,” Azazel said, unwinding the flames around him with a twitch of his fingers.

 

He looked up just in time to see Magnus’ blast of magic hit him squarely in the chest.

 

It sent him staggering backwards, the breast of his suit smoking where it had made contact. Now, Azazel’s frustration was plain on his face. “Oh no,” he spat, as he pulled himself to his full height. “You, of all the miserable creatures in this pathetic dimension, will not take this from me.”

 

He launched himself forward, hands now talons, and eyes as black as the fire he dodged around. He was there, in front of Magnus, in little more than a blink of an eye, and his left hand wrapped around Magnus’ throat.

 

Azazel lifted him off the ground, and Magnus choked. Distantly, he could feel the warm metal of the ring Azazel wore on his left ring finger press against his throat.

 

Magnus smirked. He took Azazel’s wrist in his own left hand, and with a flash of red, broke what would have been bone.

 

Azazel recoiled, first shock, then pain, darting over his face. He stared first at his shattered wrist, then looked up to Magnus

 

Tendrils of red magic that crackled like electricity ripped across Azazel’s face, and the demon shrieked in pain. Another blast, one that was half burning red and half inky black, crashed into Azazel’s chest and forced him backwards.

 

The Hellfire Azazel had dodged in his first attack had caught and spread into a loose circle. Now, it parted like silk under Azazel’s back, and he tittered on the edge of dark precipice. A woman’s giggle made its way up from the dark abyss, but by the time it reached his ears, he was already falling.

 

Azazel’s scream of terror and hatred both made it’s way up to Magnus as he picked his way through burnt undergrowth and black flames to the edge of Hell. He took a deep breath, a step forward, and then he was falling too.

 

Magnus reached out with his left hand as the wind whistled past his ears and through his hair. The book fit perfectly in his hand. It, being black, should have disappeared into the darkness of Dudael, but it still had its eery glow surrounding it.

 

The words poured from his lips in little more than a whisper. Fear had been pushed to the back of Magnus’ mind, but still something in him warned not to say those words too loud.

 

Dudael’s darkness should have made it impossible to tell, but Magnus was able to see it in his mind’s eye. Chains, mending themselves, wrapping inch by inch around Azazel’s flailing body, and then reaching towards the ground. Pulling, slowly but surely, him back into the same kneeling position Magnus had first seen him in, deaf to his cries of fury and fear.

 

A snap of his fingers and a portal bloomed in front of him, its yellow light casting shadows over Dudael’s dark desert. Magnus disappeared from hell with Azazel’s demonic curses snapping at his heels.

 

His knees hit the wooden floor of his loft hard enough to bruise. Exhaustion smothered every inch of his body even has pain lanced through it. Magnus wanted nothing more than to collapse in his bed of silk sheets and pillows and sleep.

 

But still, he stood. As every bone and muscle in his body called out for rest or respite, he made his way over to his cabinet, and with snap of his fingers, and a twirl of blue magic, opened his safe.

 

The blade went in first. He had not dared handle it for very long, no matter how useful it would have been. The dark red gem on his hilt unnerved him. It went the furthest away.

 

The book went second. Though he may not have sent it as far away as the blade, it still went to a place he wouldn’t be often tempted to take it back from. He hadn’t had time to read everything in held, but he had read enough.

 

The ring was last. Guilt stirred within him as he kept it close, in the same very house. The pain, though, like a thousand screws under his nails, lingered, and reminded him of what it was. It would have to be enough, he thought grimly.

 

That night, Magnus did not dream. He and the others would see nothing, kept away by his wish and his power.

 

Asmodeus smiled down at his brother as he panted under the weight of his chains.

 

“Asmodeus,” Azazel huffed out. “Do you see what your inference cost me? Remove these chains!”

 

“Oh, I think not,” Asmodeus said as he rolled his shoulders. “Ah, ah,” he said as Azazel began to protest. “Don’t fear. You’ll be free soon enough.”

 

Azazel wrinkled his nose in disgust. “This is what you’ve come to in my absence then?” he scoffs. “Blindly trusting in  _ Lilith’s _ prophesies?”

 

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” Asmodeus said, “I trust exactly none of my precious siblings.”

 

The chain’s scraped against the stone they were bound to as Azazel lunged forward. “She is not one of us,” he spat.

 

The roll of Asmodeus’ golden eyes appears like flitting fireflies in the dark cavern. “Oh, Azazel,” he sighed. “You always were so short-sighted.”

 

He turns, then, purposefully grinding the heel of his expensive shoe into the harsh earth. Dudael had never exactly been to his taste, and it was not he who was forced to reside in this desolate realm.

 

“Your spawn,” Azazel said, amusement Asmodeus thought was rather misplaced considering his current predicament. “Magnus Bane is his name?” Asmodeus slowed to a stop, but Azazel did not wait for an answer. “You gave him some of  _ our _ weapons, did you not?”

 

Asmodeus did not speak, but Azazel let out a raspy laugh anyways. “And he cast them away, didn’t he!” The joy in his tone was definitely an insult, Asmodeus decided and begins to walk again.

 

Azazel’s black eyes glinted impossibly in the darkness. “Your blood has not tainted his soul,” he called after Asmodeus. “I’ve seen it myself. I thought it impossible, but it is the truth. You will never get what you desire from him.”

 

His laughter is cut short when Asmodeus turned back to him, his cat eyes shining and his smile wide. “See?” he asked. “Short-sighted.”

**Author's Note:**

> So this is mostly a backstory for references made in some of my other Shadowhunters fic. I just really liked the idea of Magnus having something to do with binding Azazel, since he knew so much about it as soon as Alec brought him some hell sand.
> 
> Plus I'm totally in love with the idea of Magnus doing badass and Prince of Hell things before the series even began. Love that.
> 
> Please leave a comment if you liked this!


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